Dangerous: There was an effort to undermine the integrity of the 2024 elections by spreading misinformation. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
A rise in the spread of disinformation and misinformation on social media platforms such as X, Facebook and WhatsApp during South Africa’s 2024 national election could have undermined trust in legislative, political and government institutions, experts have warned.
The false narratives included one undermining the integrity of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), Keegan Leech, a researcher at the nonprofit Africa Check told a forum on Tuesday.
Disinformation is created and spread deliberately by individuals, while misinformation involves people resharing reports without realising it is false.
Leech said Africa Check, working with several other organisations, had published 69 reports of false information during the election period, a rise in fake reports compared with the 2019 vote.
Typical examples included false quotes attributed to politicians, false claims about attendance at a rally and non-existent party endorsements. One such example was a deepfake video of rapper Eminem endorsing the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
“Some had taken a video of Eminem, the rapper, and used voice cloning technology to mimic his voice and have him appear to endorse the EFF. It’s quite a funny one, because it’s so bizarre, and it sticks out as highly untrue that this US celebrity would be getting involved in a South African election,” Leech said.
He said it was common to see edited photos and videos that were mostly not very sophisticated.
Other false narratives were that the EFF was manufacturing false identity documents to allow foreign nationals to vote in the election and that President Cyril Ramaphosa was giving free data bundles to ANC supporters. There was also a false claim that ballot papers had been found pre-marked with votes for the ruling party and a false report of an uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party rally that had a photograph of a May Day rally in another country.
“But by far the most coordinated and major narrative that we saw was posts undermining the credibility of the IEC and these came on especially hard as voting started and during the actual voting and then after the election, as votes were being counted. There were all of these claims about how the IEC was biased,” Leech said.
He said there were often claims about votes not being counted correctly and election materials being destroyed, “but the sheer volume of this was quite a surprise to us”.
He added that fake information often arises online where there is an “information vacuum”.
“A breaking news story is a classic example when there’s very little detail known about a breaking news event. Often that detail gets filled in with scammers trying to profit off of the breaking news event, off people desperately searching for information but not being able to find any accurate information,” he said.
A presentation to the forum by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) showed that before the elections, the volume of data ramped up primarily because of campaigning by political parties. About 45% of posts on X were about the vote being neutral, and 45% were negative about the elections. On election day, the volume of data increased significantly, but with a decrease in negative sentiment and an increase in informative content.
The CSIR said an assessment of the tone of the posts showed a shift from anger and anticipation before the elections to joy and optimism on election day.
Trinexia cybersecurity expert Byron Davel said technological tools using artificial intelligence can help political parties protect their reputations against false information and enable them to swiftly remove online posts.
“If the political party is linked to fraud or scams, it can seriously damage its public view. Voters may view parties unethical or corrupt or untrustworthy, which can lead to a loss of support, even if that individual party wasn’t the one creating or spreading those scams,” he said.
Davel said the spread of misinformation and disinformation through online campaigns could significantly distort the legislative process and erode the public’s trust in government institutions and this “can lead to serious disillusionment and decreased civic engagement”.
“It can seriously influence public opinion as well as policy decision-making, which changes the way a democratic institution may function and it creates challenges that legislatures need to address to essentially maintain trust and efficiency in governance,” he said.
“Legislators must navigate these ethical challenges of addressing misinformation without infringing on rights like freedom of speech. Balancing these concerns can be complex and contentious.”